Dodo bird Lake suddenly flying high on HST

Terry Lake is looking pretty good on the HST today.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Kamloops-North Thompson MLA and now environment minister was staring at the brink of political rapture, to borrow from a current phrase.

At times, it looked as though he couldn’t get it right. He was on the wrong side of the issue, and his defenses of Gordon Campbell’s folly were often scorned.

There were calls — from the left, predictably — for him to join Blair Lekstrom in abandoning ship. He was likened to the do-do bird.

Almost exactly a year ago, he embarrassed himself by claiming a legislative committee of which he was chair had the authority to invalidate the successful anti-HST petition.

“The committee could look at that initiative and say that it’s invalid,” he said.

For that comment, he was called unfit for the job. He was identified by the Globe and Mail as one of the most at-risk MLAs for recall, an assessment that was bolstered by the fact his riding was among the first in which enough signatures were gathered to push the anti-HST petition over the top.

Campbell publicly refuted Lake’s comment about the committee, and Lake himself had to immediately recant, admitting he misspoke.

“It was never my intent to go around or circumvent the petition at all. We’re not looking for loopholes, we will respect the (process),” he said.

Next, he refused to accept the petition from Fight HST leader Bill Vander Zalm, saying only B.C.’s chief electoral officer had the authority to present it to his legislative initiatives committee.

“The law is clear,” he insisted.

Finally, he was put in the unhappy position, as chair of that same committee, of accepting the results of the petition and putting the wheels in motion for a referendum.

Adding insult to injury, the recall campaign came within shouting distance of unseating him as MLA, though organizer Chad Moats made the tactical error of shredding the petition instead of forwarding the names to Elections B.C. for validation.

But that, as they say, was then. Forgotten among all the negative attention of the past year was a comment he made last June 15, two weeks before the new tax took effect.

It should, he suggested, be reduced from 12 to 10 per cent as soon as possible. He explained that, under the deal with Ottawa, B.C. had the authority to change the tax rate after two years.

“It’s always been after two years we could adjust the rate upward or downward. As a government we’ve always looked at ways of lowering taxes.”

That date comes due July 1, 2012.

Nobody in government or in opposition paid much attention to such speculation, and it passed by as little more than the musings of an MLA looking for ways to make a highly unpopular tax just a little less unpopular.

Today, Lake looks like a seer, for Wednesday finance minister Kevin Falcon announced the Liberals will cut the tax to 10 per cent over the next three years. The first cut of one per cent will come — you guessed it — in July 2012.

Was Lake just lucky at cards, or did he influence the outcome? We aren’t privy to discussions of the executive council, so we don’t know.

But either way, Lake’s stock is a heckuva lot improved from what it was 12 months ago.